Econometrics encompasses the statistical methods which are especially important in modeling economic and financial phenomena. The study of economic and financial phenomena has three distinctions compared to other types of statistical problems.
1] Typically, the data sets are big, which is a result of several economic factors being followed for many days, hours, minutes, etc. This leads to particular emphasis on the large sample methods of statistics. For that reason, the method of maximum likelihood and its variations occupy a prominent spot.
2] Typically, the economic and financial phenomena are followed in time. Most often the moments of time are discretely spaced, corresponding to a particular time of day over many days, particular day of the year over many years, etc. Therefore, much emphasis is made on techniques designed for stochastic processes defined on a discrete time domain. These techniques are known as time series analysis.
3] Economic and financial data tend to exhibit strong heteroskedasticity (variation in the standard deviation over time) and autocorrelation. Much attention is devoted to developing the most efficient statistical techniques under these circumstances.
ECONOMETRICS SUBCATEGORIES